1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a printer, a copier, or a facsimile, and, in particular, to a recovery toner container for recovering removed residual transfer toner, and an image forming apparatus including the recovery toner container.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image forming apparatus, after a toner is formed on a recording material such as paper, a residual transfer toner remaining on a photosensitive body or an intermediate transfer member is conveyed and recovered into a recovery toner container by a cleaning apparatus. When a toner recovery amount in the recovery toner container reaches a predetermined amount, the recovery toner container is replaced with an empty recovery toner container.
In recent years, since effective utilization of resources has been required, reuse of even recovery toner containers, which were often discarded after replacement, has been considered. In order to reuse a recovery toner container, it is necessary to efficiently discharge toner recovered in the recovery toner container, and to clean the inside of the recovery toner container.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-300635 discloses a recovery toner container configuration that is intended to efficiently discharge an internal recovered toner without scattering the toner over the periphery in reuse.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-300635, when the inside of a recovery toner container is cleaned, a screw member 112 is rotated to discharge a toner from a discharge portion 103. Accordingly, the toner fixed in the recovery toner container can be crushed and discharged.
However, the conventional configuration has the following problem.
In the recovery toner container disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-300635, a spiral screw member 112 is rotated while the screw member 112 and a bearing member 107 are fitted to each other. Therefore, a toner entering a fitting portion gap between the screw member 112 and the bearing member 107 cannot be removed and cleaned off. In this case, in a toner conveyance direction downstream side, a conveyed toner may enter a fitting portion of a bearing and be pressed and adhered by a subsequent toner. Then, due to the toner adhesion, a screw rotation load may increase in reuse, thus causing trouble in functioning.
Thus, in a recovery toner container including a rotatably-supported rotating member, it is desirable to efficiently remove and clean off the recovered toner adhered to a bearing portion of the recovery toner container, while increasing the efficiency of discharging the recovered toner stored in the recovery toner container to the outside.